


Familiar Stranger

by QueenAng



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29704698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenAng/pseuds/QueenAng
Summary: “Don’t look at me like that. Like I’m a stranger.”
Relationships: Megatron/Optimus Prime, Megatron/Orion Pax
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	Familiar Stranger

_Optimus Prime._

The words ring in Orion Pax’s audials. He can barely hear the chaos arising around the platform on which he faces the Council. Somehow, his optics meet those of Alpha Trion’s, and Orion feels a sudden tilt in his world, a sense of betrayal that cuts spark-deep.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. It was never supposed to happen like this.

_Optimus Prime._

Orion steps off the platform, turning his back on the highest power on Cybertron. He hears Alpha Trion call for— for him, that’s his designation now, _Prime_. But he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even hesitate in his steps. An orn ago he would have never shown such flagrant disrespect to the mech who trained him. But an orn ago, he was not _Optimus Prime_.

Megatron is gone from the place where he had stepped back when Orion took over his speech. There are still some Decepticons milling around, all eyeing Orion warily. They give him a wide berth as he navigates between them, looking for the towering outline of the gladiator. None of them try to stop him, but they don’t aid him either. They look at him like he’s one of _them_.

He doesn’t really care what it looks like to the Council – running from their chambers right after being declared Prime. In his processor, all he sees is Megatron’s gaze, locked on him from the edge of the platform, then gone in an instant.

The cold air of the Cybertronian winter greets him as he flees out the doors. It doesn’t take him long to spot Megatron’s immense grey war-frame among the smaller, colorful Iaconi ones.

“Megatron!”

Megatron does, at least, stop. So Orion figures things aren’t too badly messed up. If Megatron chose to ignore him, there would be nothing Orion could do in his power to force Megatron’s attention on him.

He turns around slowly, fusion cannon glowing brightly at his side, and Orion’s fuel tank twists. He wonders which of the Decepticons around them snuck the weapon into the city for him.

Megatron’s voice is slow when he speaks. “So quick to deign the public with your gracious presence, Prime.”

 _Prime_. That awful name again. “Megatron, deactivate the cannon.”

He laughs, hard and brittle. “And so quick to dish out orders as well. You are a natural, Optimus.”

It sounds like a curse, the way it comes from Megatron’s vocalizer. Like something better off not spoken at all, like something best left censored and redacted and buried. _You are a natural_ feels like even more of a cutting insult.

“No wonder they chose you.” Those words are softer, but Megatron’s voice carries, as he no doubt intends.

Orion tries to take a step down one of the stairs separating them, but the sound of the cannon starting to power up has him stopping. He wants to believe Megatron wouldn’t dare start a fight on the center of the steps to the Council Chambers, but he also never believed before this joor that he would come face-to-face with the sight of Megatron’s onlined weapon.

“I didn’t want this,” Orion says. It’s all he can think to say. He thinks it should be obvious, that much, but Megatron is as stubborn as he is brilliant sometimes.

“But how convenient it was handed to you,” Megatron replies, “on a silver platter. A few glyphs from your golden vocalizer and now the world has changed. I wonder, what do _you_ have that _I_ do not? Besides the Matrix, Prime.”

“This was not my intention,” Orion insists. He wants to step closer, wants to close this vast distance between them that feels like far more than a set of stairs, but he refrains. He’s seen what Megatron’s fusion cannon can do at half-power. “You know this, Megatron. You know me.”

“I do not.” Megatron’s voice is cold. “I know better than to make the acquaintance of a Prime.”

Orion can hardly contain the derision in his tone. “ _Acquaintance_?”

Purple light momentarily blinds his optics until they adjust. Megatron’s cannon arm is raised, the barrel alighting most of Orion’s frame in a faint glow. Orion has seen it before, the quick movement, the sudden light cast upon a frame. He’s seen it in dark halls beneath the arena, during secret rendezvous between matches when another gladiator wandered the wrong way. He’s seen it in the taverns after victorious fights, when other Kaonites get cocky enough to try to proposition him. He knows the cold look that’s on Megatron’s faceplates, shielded from his current view by the wide barrel of his cannon.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Orion says. “Like I’m a stranger.”

“I know no Prime,” Megatron replies.

“I am Orion Pax. You—”

The sound of the fusion cannon firing momentarily deafens him. Orion has only ever heard it fire from a far distance, from the highest stands of the arena. He’s seen the aftermath of it; the scattered grey parts on the dusty arena floor. But after the initial shock passes, he realizes that he’s missing no limbs and his spark is still, violently, spinning in his chassis. A quick turn of his helm confirms that the shot went wide, but only just. One of the great doors to the Council Chambers is partially vaporized, the searing, jagged metal edges of what remains of it hanging ajar from its moderately melted hinges. Whatever stragglers had followed behind Orion from the chambers to watch the fallout had scattered, probably as soon as Megatron started pointing a cannon up at him.

Megatron’s vocalizer spits static beneath his words, filled with barely-contained rage. “You _dare_ to speak his designation!” he snarls. “You dare to _presume_ to you know anything about my librarian! You have no right to dirty his designation from your vocalizer, Prime!”

For a brief moment, rage overcomes the grief that had overtaken his processor. “I’m dead to you, then, I take it?”

“As all Primes should be,” Megatron growls in response.

Orion steels his shoulders. “Just because you lost Orion Pax doesn’t mean he’s gone.”

“With their Matrix,” Megatron says, “he is as good as it.”

That, somehow, cuts deeper than anything else. Or maybe it’s the result of layers upon layers of cutting remarks finally breaching his spark. Orion isn’t sure, and he dares not think deeper about it here, lest he do something more embarrassing than have a lover’s quarrel on the chamber steps as his first public appearance as Prime.

Megatron slowly lowers his cannon, though it sends no relief through Orion. His tone is heavy when he speaks. “I’ll return for your helm, Prime. I’ll see to it that you join him in the Well. The death of Orion Pax will not go without vengeance.”

“His death at your servo?” It feels odd, he notes, in the back of his processor, to speak of himself like he’s another observer of this altercation.

“His death at theirs.” Megatron jerks his helm in gesture to the Council Chambers. “Your accomplices. _You, Prime_.”

Orion feels, faintly, that this whole situation is unreal. “You’re making a mistake.”

“You already made yours,” Megatron replies. “I suppose it’s my turn now.”

He turns to leave, and this time Orion doesn’t try to stop him. He wonders if Megatron would even hesitate if he called after him again.

“Prime!” the shout of one of the council members – Halogen, Orion thinks – comes from the demolished doorway. “Are you all right, Prime?”

“Fine,” Orion says.

Halogen casts a look at Megatron’s retreating form and vents a sigh of relief. “Good riddance,” he says. “I didn’t think he’d ever leave. Some first day, isn’t it?”

Orion’s spark sinks at the idea that this is, really, only day one. But there had to be an end in sight, somewhere along the way. How long could Megatron possibly grieve Orion Pax before recognizing the existence of Optimus Prime?

He thinks he hears the ghost of an answer, muddled behind a broken spark-bond. _Eternity_ , it says, in a voice reminiscent of a Kaonite’s drawling accent. _Eternity. Forever. Perpetually. Without end._ I _will not forget Orion Pax, as you have._


End file.
